Basic HAL help

I need some basic HAL help here.

As a programmer an general sane person working with something like hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.input-02 is pretty much a non-starter. So I want to name some stuff and I'm either not getting the syntax right, or I'm trying to do something that isn't possible.

So lets say I want to take 2 pins, and and2 them together to figure out if I a servo-amp is throwing an error...


#...lots of other garbage...
loadrt and2 count=1
#...more garbage...
addf and2.0 servo-thread

net x-amp-warning <= hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.input-02
net x-amp-on <= hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.input-03-not

#that seems reasonable so far, we've brought in the 2 pins we care about and given them descriptive names. Now lets put those things into an and2.

net and2.0.in0 <= x-amp-warning
net and2.0.in1 <= x-amp-on

Error, pin 'x-amp-warning' does not exist.. Why is it that I can't connect what seems to be a "signal" to another signal? I thought the analogy in the tutorial was that signals are just wires. I can certainly connect wires together in real life... Do I have to makeup a pin to connect these wires at somehow?

Finding this to be a 10/10 on the frustrating scale.

Well that's awesome...

No:
net and2.0.in0 <= x-amp-warning
net and2.0.in1 <= x-amp-on

Yes:
net x-amp-warning => and2.0.in0
net y-amp-ready => and2.0.in1

But... why? They seem to be the same. Lines above like:
net x-amp-warning <= hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.input-02
net x-amp-on <= hm2_5i25.0.7i77.0.0.input-03-not
Assign the thing on the right to the thing on the left just fine. Why is it reversed in this case?

In Hal a "net" command has specific syntax.
net "signal name" "pin names"
The first word after the net is ALWAYS the signal name. This is an arbitrary name that you make up for this signal. It can be a new name or reference an existing signal name.
Next come the pin names, they are specific names of hal pins created by hal components. There can be only one output pin connected to any one signal name, but as many input pins as you like.